Take a look at it if you choose to browse through it in advance of our Genealogy Program that will take place on Tuesday evening, January 10, 2012 at 7:30 PM at our main library location at 130 S. Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL.

You can read the handouts online or you can save them as a PDF file to your own computer for reading offline and more detailed searching through all of the contents.

You will also note that I have started “highlighting” in this uploaded PDF key points within the handout by using the “yellow highlighting” function within Microsoft Word. This will allow your eyes to visually see key points within the handouts that I want to emphasize. I hope you will enjoy being able to more easily see these key points within the set of handouts through this highlighting technique. I plan on highlighting within the Handout file on a going forward basis.

Please note that the Handouts PDF file has embedded Bookmarks to allow you to move to the handouts of interest to you quickly without having to scroll through the entire document. Just open the Bookmark window in the PDF file and select the handout of interest for quick access.

You can also get to the handouts of interest to you quickly via the Table of Contents at the beginning of the document. You will find hyperlinks that will get you directly to the handout of interest to you from the Table of Contents.

Please note that you can access directly any and all URL Links that you find within the Handouts PDF. You can get directly to the website being mentioned from within the handout being mentioned.

Take a look at it if you choose to browse through it in advance of our Genealogy Program that will take place on Tuesday evening, January 10, 2012 at 7:30 PM at our main library location at 130 S. Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL.

You can read the newsletter online or you can save it as a PDF file to your own computer for reading offline and more detailed searching through all of the contents.

Please note that the Newsletter has Bookmarks and Hyperlinks within the document to make for fast navigation from within the Table of Contents. You can quickly get to the spots that interest you from the Table of Contents.

It is that time once again when we will be having another Genealogy Program at the central location of the Schaumburg Township District Library on Tuesday evening, January 10, 2012 at 7:30 PM. We are located at 130 S. Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL.

There is no pre-registration required in order to attend the program. There is no fee charged to attend. Anyone can attend this program. You do not have to be a library card holder with the Schaumburg Township District Library in order to attend.

Here is a summary of the information about the program:

Caron Primas Brennan

The Genealogy program will be held on Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 7:30 PM in the 2nd floor Classroom. The guest speaker for the evening will be Caron Primas Brennan. Caron will present a program titled “Social Networking for Genealogy: Family Trees, FaceBook, Blogs and More”.

Social networking is a collaborative process in which information (comments, photos, news, videos, links) are created and shared. There are many ways to use social networking for genealogy research, whether you want to share your family tree, swap pictures, find new places to look for information or get “how to” tips. Ancestry Family Trees, Facebook groups, shared family web sites, and blogs are all part of the new world of social networking. You do not have to be a computer expert to benefit! Come find out who is looking for you!

Caron loves history, biography, puzzles and a good mystery, which makes her perfectly suited to genealogy research! She has been researching her family history since a 6th grade school project got her interested. She has been using the computer and internet since before it was “cool”. She uses The Master Genealogist as her primary software and also uses Family Tree Maker and Ancestry to share with others in her family. Caron’s only vice is genealogy research so she has subscriptions to many resources including Ancestry.com, Genealogybank.com, NEGHS, Footnote, and Godfrey Memorial Library. She belongs to several local genealogy groups and is the Webmaster and Newsletter Publisher for CAGGNI (www.caggni.org).

The doors to the room will open at approximately 7 PM so participants can pick up any handouts, review books and journals and interact with other participants. Tony Kierna, the STDL genealogist, will start the program at 7:30. Introductions of new participants will occur as well as a brief review of handouts and genealogical matters. It is expected that the guest speaker’s presentation will start at around 7:45-8:00 PM. We will end the session by 9:30 PM.For further information contact Tony Kierna at 847-923-3390.

The new “Poll Archives” page is now in place at the top of the blog. Just click on the link for the page and you will be able to see both the current poll that is open as well as past polls that have been “closed out”.

Within the archive you can see all of this material all in one place, especially if you have missed any of the past polls I have conducted before you started reading this blog.

As of today, there are only two polls there at this time since I just started my first poll only on November 25, 2011. But over time this archive will grow!

Out with the old, in with the new! Sounds like a New Year’s catch phrase!

Well, I have just closed out my first poll that I had on the right sidebar of this blog. It had been open since November 25, 2011.

I think I was ready to be creative, maybe, and put a new poll on the right sidebar of this blog at the very top. You can’t miss it.

I, and hopefully readers of this blog, may be interested to know if you have ever attended a national, multi-day genealogical conference such as one put together by the National Genealogical Society (NGS), the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) or a new one that just started last year, called RootsTech?

These are big time conferences often drawing attendance in the are of 3,000 visitors over a series of days. You can listen to as many as 5 to 7 programs or more each day if you include the luncheon and dinner activities. So over a few days you can OD on 20+ programs of your choice to beef up your genealogical knowledge and make you both a better researcher and family historian.

I have attended one of these national programs in my life and would recommend that any genealogical researcher attend at least one program in their lives. It is really a big event!

It does not matter whether you are a rank novice or a genealogical research expert with 10 years of experience. These conferences are stimulating, motivating, informative and just plain fun-filled with excitement and camaraderie among fellow researchers. The speakers are also the best of the best from around the world in the field of genealogy. Plus, you often have to travel to distant places in the U.S. to attend these programs. So you also get the benefit of travel while learning new skills in genealogy.

Sometimes the programs may be in your own backyard as was the case with the recent FGS program in Springfield, IL this last September. Well, if you are living in the Chicago area, Springfield is not quite in your “backyard” but it was closer and could cost less for you by saving on air travel and driving to Springfield instead. A national program was held in Chicago a few years back which did put a national conference truly in your backyard. They often recycle through the same major cities. You may very well find yourself with the opportunity to attend one in Chicago when one most likely will reappear in the future.

Please take the poll. It does not cost you anything and I don’t find out any secrets of those voting from any information being captured by me when you vote.

I, and readers of this blog, would certainly like to see more than 39 voters taking the plunge with this poll!

But I will take what I can get.

Also feel free to suggest any other polls/questions that may interest you that pertain to genealogy to which readers could provide some insights via the poll. Leave a comment on this poll or contact me either directly through the “Contact” page at the top of this blog or even as a comment to this post.

I would like to hear from you what might be some good questions to ask in the form of a poll of the genealogy readers to this blog.